Drug Found to Make People Smarter

They found 24 studies dealing with different benefits associated with taking the drug, including planning and decision making, flexibility, learning and memory, and creativity.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the use of Modafinil (Provigil) as treatment for people suffering from sleep disorders such as those who have narcolepsy, a brain disorder which causes an individual to suddenly fall asleep at inappropriate times or to experience excessive sleepiness.

Although the researchers found no correlation between modafinil and flexibility or working memory, the team did find that modafinil enhanced planning and decision-making in the subjects. The authors of the review also noted that while the capacity of modafinil as a performance-enhancing drug varied, the cognitive benefits of the drug is more consistently conferred in longer and more complex tasks that were tested.

It is the first “smart drug” found to actually work and it appears to have few side effects, say researchers.

The new findings raise ethical concerns about using modafinil, particularly if it gives students an unfair advantage in preparing for or taking tests, the researchers wrote in their review, published online Thursday August 20 in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. “In the past, people were using very basic tests of cognition, developed for neurologically impaired individuals”, said Battleday, in a press release. Modafinil enhanced cognition more reliably in higher brain functions that needed multiple simple cognitive processes.

“In the face of vanishingly few side effects in these controlled environments, modafinil can be considered a cognitive enhancer”, study author Anna-Katharine Brem, PhD, of University of Oxford, England, said in a statement.

It is believed to improve cognitive enhancement, but there is a lack of attention on its use in people that are not sleep-deprived. In other words, it’s the first real example of a “smart drug”, which can genuinely help, for example, with exam preparation.

“Previous ethical discussion of such agents has tended to assume extravagant effects before it was clear that there were any”. Crucially, however, the new systematic review deems modafinil safe for widespread use.

He continued ‘If correct, the present update means the ethical debate is real: how should we classify, condone or condemn a drug that improves human performance in the absence of pre-existing cognitive impairment?’

‘Regulation has been and remains problematic. Revealingly, the number of monthly ADHD prescriptions issued to 20-somethings climbed from 5.6 million to 14 million between 2007 and 2011.

“We’re not saying “go out and take this drug and your life will be better”, Brem told The Guardian. “We need to explore the ethics, and scientist, politicians and the public need to be involved”.